Ready Player Me, an AI-generated avatar creation cross-platform for the Metaverse, has raised 56 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Timmu Tõke, co-founder and CEO of the startup, said the funding will be used to expand the cross-platform Metaverse avatar system.
Investors injected new capital into Ready Player Me, and the CEO said “interoperability” is the key to unlocking the Metaverse.
on Tuesday Ready Player Me (Ready Player Me (RPM), a startup that publishes 3D avatars to be utilized in the Metaverse, announced that it has raised $56 million in a Series B funding round. This funding follows a Series A funding round announced in December 2021, in which the company raised $13 million in a funding round led by Taavet+Sten.
The $56 million Series B financing was led by a16z and included Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, King Games co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, Hartbeat RPM CEO Timmu Tõke believes that cross-platform connectivity is the key to unlocking the metaverse. He believes it will be the key to unlocking it.
“The key to a true metaverse experience is interoperability between games, worlds, and applications and a consistent identity for users across all experiences,” Tõke said Tuesday.” We believe it is essential that virtual world users create avatars they like, purchase avatar skins and accessories that work across the metaverse, and not be locked into one game, the RPM executive added,
“We believe that the key to a true metaverse experience is interoperability between games and applications.
This infusion of funds will allow Ready Player Me to continue to expand the avatar system, make it more flexible for developers, create new tools for developers to monetize their avatar assets, and build tools for individual creators to participate in the inter-game avatar market. This will make it possible for developers to monetize their avatar assets.
Ready Player Me signs prominent players, popular brands and giant companies seek to capitalize on the Metaverse concept
RPM already has a strong track record with companies like Adidas, Warner Brothers, Pull&and Dior, and has partnerships with well-known companies such as Bear, Dior RPM also works with Hiber, Mzaalo, Nemesis platform, 8th Wall, and Pixelynx. rpm has also completed custom avatar infrastructure for major companies such as HTC, Verizon, Tencent, and Wargaming. a16z’s General Partner Jonathan Lai noted that the investment firm was “impressed with the team” and that a16z is looking forward to partnering with RPM.
“Ready Player Me is loved by both developers and players as the largest platform for the Avatar System-as-a-Service, and we are well on our way to building an interoperable identity protocol for the open metaverse,” Lai said in a Tuesday explained in an announcement.
RPM’s fundraising follows a significant influx of popular brands and companies looking to capitalize on the metaverse concept. This week, Invesco, a fund manager with $1.4 billion in assets under management (AUM), launched its Metaverse fund. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is building a Metaverse Campus, while the University of Tokyo is offering engineering courses focused on Metaverse technology.
In the second week of August, there were reports that Samsung had signed memorandums of understanding with a number of Metaverse startups. However, Metaverse has received a lot of criticism for its concept, which has come under fire from such luminaries as billionaire investor Mark Cuban and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
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